Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Until a couple of decades ago,
photography was a costly affair practised only by those who can afford…… there
were famous names such as – Agfa, Kodak, Konica – which all sold film rolls.
People returning from a foreign
trip used to gift film rolls of 24 or 36 to friends and relatives. There were
some manual cameras where you had to manualluwondeverytime a photo was taken
and some automatic – more importantly, people were unsure of the results and one had to wait with
bated breath after giving the roll for developing – expecting some good items captured do turn
out well !

Film rolls and camers found a watery
grave with the advent of digital cameras, now threatened by smart phones. People are clicking everywhere and mostly of
thyself – ‘selfies’ – on FB a nauseating photo of a person carrying a dead
person, taking a selfie is doing rounds !

By some accounts,
it is stated that British public take
14.5 million selfies a day - but only 4.3million of them are posted online,
suggesting they're not all quite up to the standard of celebs like Kim
Kardashian.The information comes from a study by Carphone Warehouse which shows
that the now selfie-obsessed British public take 5.25billion of them every
year. With social media sites like
Instagram and Twitter giving us easy access to the pictures glamorous
celebrities take of themselves, it seems more than two thirds of selfies don't
make it to social media.Queen of selfie- Kim Kardashian has nearly 39million followers
on Instagram and the photos she posts of herself can dominate headlines all
around the world.

More than half of
British adults admit to touching up their hair and make-up like selfie Queen
Kim Kardashian, pictured, before pressing the button on the camera. A third
even admit to digitally editing the image before posting it. Former Manchester United and England star
David Beckham has more than 7million followers on Instagram and posted this
selfie while on holiday. Karen Danczuk,
the wife of MP Simon Danczuk, became an instant star after posting photos of
herself in revealing clothing online. She has now split from her husband is a
different news.

Surprisingly, it's
the 25-34 age group which take the most selfies - rather than a younger
generation - which generally posts 10 a month.
The trend is spreading to the older generation too, with a fifth of over
55s posting selfies and one in ten taking more than six a month….but this one
reported in MailOnline is different - Duckface [a type of selfie face]
reportedly now is accepted in outlets everywhere!

MailOnline report
suggests that - Mastercard are trialing a new way to verify payments - via
selfie. The card company is testing the new way to pay which involves the
customer being asked to look at the screen and blink to confirm their identity
and authenticate a payment. Five hundred people are taking part in the trial
which MasterCard chief product security officer Ajay Bhalla says is targeted at
youth. Customers will be able to use
the selfie method or a fingerprint with which to authorise a payment. The
company is also looking at voice and heartbeat recognition as an alternative. He told Americans.org that they are working
with all mobile phone manufacturers to create the new biometric security
method, part of a number of alternatives to PIN numbers being looked at.

According to Bhalla,
the new generation is into selfies, their embracing would mean seamless
integration of biometrics into the
overall payment experience.'Customers will be able to use the selfie method or
a fingerprint with which to authorise a payment. The company is also looking at
voice and heartbeat recognition as an alternative. However, the problem with
these new ways to pay is that they're not as easily revoked as a PIN number,
should a fraudster somehow manage to get hold of your details. Google tried using facial recognition to
unlock phones but people quickly realised you could just present a photo of
that person in front of the camera to bypass the system.

However, there are
concerns that if a criminal could somehow manage to clone any of the actions
required for the new methods, it would be difficult to stop this continuing
without disabling the new method altogether. Ken Munro, security researcher at
Pen Test Partners, told the BBC: 'What happens if your facial recognition data
gets stolen? You can't change your face.' The blink test, rather than a simple
selfie, is designed to stop hackers from being able to authorise payments with
a simple photograph.- - ~ and the company says that photos won't be sent
directly to the company in case people are sensitive about privacy. Instead, it
will be converted into a different format that will be used to authenticate the
payment.